Serr

I can't get that voice out of my head. And each time it repeats, it gets louder and uglier, as does my hate for it.

But no one can know about how much I hate right now--it's a secret; serr.

And so I'll remain calm on the surface, and keep my collapse inside--hidden underneath my superficial self. There it will remain mine and it will not affect anyone else.

But the voice is excruciating: her Arabic stands out against theirs and the cackling and chain smoke I hear and imagine in the background. It's very rare that I invest enough energy to hate anything--so I must keep this serr.

"Go away, and get away," I wish.

I try to drown it out with a steady stream of amplified sound through my ear buds. The voice keeps "coming around again. When it comes, it comes unannounced and it feels like a matador is taunting me with his reddest red cloth--and I am the bull," Brandon tells me (it seems he's experienced these feelings too).

His song and those that follow simultaneously supplement the cheap voice, feeding it and emphasizing it; and are challenged by it. That hideous female voice delivers a white-noise slap on the next song's noted cheek. A duel is decreed and ensues.

The gang of songs drown out the wretched pitch of her Arabic--a language I love, but hate right now. And just as it seems the melodies would be the victor in this melee, she reveals her secret weapon, her serr: his voice.

Had his voice not been there, hers would've never been heard; had he not been there, she would not be hated. Had I not heard them together, there would be no serr to write of.

His words are more lethal than hers: They lunge at the soothing songs, and twist and turn the sharp tip of their knives through the music shield, passed the core, and into my heart.

The songs surrender, and assimilate with the challengers' posse: her voice; his voice, now amplified by songs of anguish and love and heartbreak.

It's too much. I pause my iPod, and take out my ear buds, and anxiously listen for silence. I deny the tear that just as anxiously wants to stream down my cheek--I have to; I must erase any evidence of this morning battle, and keep it serr.

Lazim a tanish. It's time for coffee with mom. I sit down on the couch in the living room, give her a saba7 il khair smile, and turn on VH1.